<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Where Nobody Knows Your Name by BristlingBassoon</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29209989">Where Nobody Knows Your Name</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BristlingBassoon/pseuds/BristlingBassoon'>BristlingBassoon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Band of Brothers (TV 2001), Bomb Girls, GLOW (TV 2017), Mad Men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Dancing, HIV/AIDS Crisis, Lewis Nixon is a bi disaster, Multi, Nix and Winters' brief LDR, Pretty much everyone's queer here, Time slip, Time travellers technically, Walk Into A Bar, World War II, bar out of time</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:08:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,924</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29209989</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BristlingBassoon/pseuds/BristlingBassoon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What kind of bar is Sal’s, if that was the name of it? A pansy bar, Lew thinks, because that’s the usual answer to that question, but instead he shrugs and says “seems like a pretty regular sort of bar to me.” Lost souls, trying to find happiness in a glass. Same as everywhere.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Where Nobody Knows Your Name</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've been making connections between Lewis Nixon, Gladys Witham and Bash Howard. They're all heirs to huge corporations with a contentious relationship to their parents, whose marriages or attempts at marriage haven't exactly worked out, interacting with a bunch of people who are decidedly not rich. So what if they walked into a weird time slip bar that only appears when you need it? </p><p>I've never read Callahan's Crosstime Saloon or played the game but from what I understand it's a similar bar-out-of-time situation, where anyone can go if they need a place to hang.<br/>This was originally going to be just Gladys and Lewis and Bash, but more lost souls just sort of seeped in. I also couldn't finish the fic without leaving the characters happier than they were when they came in. </p><p>Title is a bastardisation of that Cheers song. Never watched the show but I listened to the song and it is <i>wild</i>, let me tell you.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>SAL’S BAR.</em>
</p><p>The neon light winks invitingly in the rain. Pink, sputtering, suggesting something of sin, which is appealing enough for him, so Lew pushes the door open, walks down a narrow flight of stairs, gives his trench to the coat-check, who’s a blank-faced man in a penguin suit same as any other anywhere, takes the ticket and then goes into the warmth and noise.</p><p>Music playing but no band, must be a record somewhere. On the dance floor, lit in a yellow that reminds him of sodium lights and sulphur, couples turn, drawn into their own private worlds. Behind the bar a broad dark-haired man wipes glasses, lifts his eyes and nods to the newcomer.</p><p>Lew sits down, motions the guy over, asks for Vat 69 which it turns out they don’t have, so he shrugs and says “anything, then” and the bartender suggests a few options, both whiskey and whisky, so he goes for another blend. Dewars. He’s had it before and it’s fine, but he mostly picks it because the name’s on his diary, a tiny volume leather-bound that he keeps less for the dates than for the facts and figures, tide tables, and the tiny bon-mots printed on every page that remind him of a friend.</p><p>The bartender hands over his drink, and Lew raises it in an ironic toast, but before he can pronounce “cheers,” the guy’s moved on and he’s left hanging, until a hand reaches in from the side and clinks his glass with hers.</p><p>He turns sideways, mouthing a thanks to his new drinking companion. Long, brown hair in one of those soft styles the ladies are wearing now, longer than before the war, pretty face made up classily, dark eyes like his. She’s wearing a navy rayon dress, and Lew wants to laugh, remembering a photo he has of himself wearing a dress just like that. From another life, when he was concerned with sweet harmonies and running up tabs and when his next essay was due and whether the guy in his dorm he gave handies to would also like to kiss him.</p><p>The lady smiles, crooks an eyebrow.</p><p>“What are we celebrating?”</p><p>“My return,” Lew says, and slams the glass back and swallows.</p><p>She smiles and sips her drink in a manner that’s considerably more refined, but she’s not using a straw and there are lipstick prints all over the lip of the glass.</p><p>“Gladys Witham,” the lady says, putting down the glass and holding out her hand.</p><p>“Lewis Nixon,” he replies, as he shakes, registering her firm grip and searching in her eyes for any sign of recognition. It doesn’t come, but Nixon’s a common enough name, he supposes. Not DuPont or Roosevelt, and if she’s not from the northeast she might not know.</p><p>From the look in her eyes - a searching puzzlement, he realises that she must be doing the same thing as he is, although he’s never heard of a Witham before.</p><p>Gladys laughs, a light chuckle that sounds like the movement of ice in her glass. “You haven’t seen my name on a can, then.”</p><p>“Afraid not,” Lew says, and grins broadly. “You haven’t seen my name on a town, then.”</p><p>She shrugs. “Where?”</p><p>“New Jersey?”</p><p>“Ah, well I’m afraid I have a reason for disappointing you then,” Gladys replies. “Never been there. I’m Canadian. Is it a big place?”</p><p>“What, Canada?” Lew grins further. “I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me.”</p><p>“No,” she says, giving his shoulder a little shove in a way that reminds him of his sister in the mornings before the war, when they’d steal bits of the paper from each other over breakfast. “Nixon. If that’s what the place is called, and not Lewistown or similar.”</p><p>He shrugs, tries to wring more dregs out of his glass. “Typical manufacturing town. Industrial.” He motions the bartender over, gets another. “So, you usually propping up the bar here?’</p><p>Gladys gives a small, secretive smile, and then sits back on her stool, one leg on the ledge beneath the bar, one almost stretching to the floor. Not what you’d call a ladylike position, and Lew would wonder if it were a come-on if it didn’t seem so unconscious.</p><p>She reaches into her purse and starts touching up her lipstick with a little hand mirror, which reinforces his idea that she’s not trying anything on, because that’s not something girls usually do in front of guys. Ruins the illusion. “What kind of a bar do you think this is, then?”</p><p>Lew rests his elbow on the marble, avoiding drink puddles, and looks about the room. It’s a mix of soldiers, sailors, pilots and civilians. Some of them look like they’re straight from a costume party, like the girl in the corner dressed like his grandmother, or the fellow in khaki at the edge of the dance floor, who you might take for a soldier except his gear is more than twenty years old. Lew would like to ask him what kind of party he’s just been to, because dressing up like you’re in the last war isn’t what he’d call particularly fun, but the guy’s eyes look like they’ve been scalded in water. They have a blank, peeled look to them, which doesn't speak of parties but of sanitariums upstate. But there’s still a searching manner to him, even if it doesn’t show in his eyes.</p><p>What kind of bar is Sal’s, if that was the name of it? A pansy bar, Lew thinks, because that’s the usual answer to that question, but instead he shrugs and says “seems like a pretty regular sort of bar to me.” Lost souls, trying to find happiness in a glass. Same as everywhere.</p><p>Gladys smiles lightly, and puts her hand on his arm. For some reason, he doesn’t shrug her off, even though he doesn’t want her to get the wrong impression.</p><p>“It’s a liminal space.”</p><p>He raises an eyebrow.</p><p>“A world between worlds, if you will.”</p><p>What the hell’s that supposed to mean?.</p><p>“Look, where are you now?” He goes to say “in a damn bar,” but Gladys continues. “Where were you when you entered this bar?”</p><p>“Just walked in off the street in New York,” he says.</p><p>“There you go,” Gladys replies. “I’m from Toronto. And I’m <em>in</em> Toronto at this very moment.” She gestures to the dim doorway, the coat check. “If I walk up those stairs I’m on Yonge Street and it’s September and,” she checks her watch, “given that it’s only been twenty minutes, probably still raining.”</p><p>“Wasn’t raining in New York,” says Lew roughly, as if he can convince himself that this whole thing isn’t, as Colonel Dobie would have said, “bloody weird.”</p><p>“Are you on leave?” Gladys asks, tapping the stem of her glass with her fingernails.</p><p>“No, demobbed. Others are still doing the cleanup but I had enough points to leave.”</p><p>“Oh, so the war’s over for you?” Gladys shrugs. “Ours is still going.” She holds up a hand suddenly. “But you’re not allowed to tell me how it’s going to end. One of Sal’s rules, and if you break it, well -“ She mimes a cut-throat.</p><p>“What, she takes you out the back and shanks you?” Lew can’t keep the amusement out of his voice.</p><p>“No, you just get kicked out and can’t return.” She points at the barman, who notices her and smiles. “Don’t go looking for an innkeeper’s wife, that’s Sal right there.”</p><p>“And Sal is…” Lew prompts. Impresario of blank spaces? He looks the guy over, and concludes quickly that in many ways the bar must be a pansy bar, because Sal returns his gaze knowingly in a way that’s more than familiar.</p><p>And much like walking into a pansy bar for the first time, he’s found himself lost, turning to someone who appears to be an old hand. <em>What is this place and how does it work, and could I belong here?</em></p><p>Gladys nudges up closer to him. She must be drunker than she looks.</p><p>“Sal used to be an illustrator, but he lost his job.”</p><p>“So he runs a weird bar that’s in two places at once,” Lew quips.</p><p>“Oh, it’s in more than two places at once,” says Gladys, meaningfully.</p><p>He remembers what she said about the war, how it’s over for him but not for her. Lew looks over the patrons again, spots the blinded guy, and instead of thinking <em>costume party</em>, he thinks <em>corpse. </em>Maybe he’s not in a bar. Maybe he’s dead, and in his last moments, his stupid scrambled brain has played a trick on him and conjured up the kind of place his more sensible friends were always trying to drag him out of. The thought scares him a little, even though he’s been in worse places by far. You could say he spent the last three years in them.</p><p>He tries to keep the shake out of his voice. “Is this place some kind of purgatory?”</p><p>“Not exactly,” Gladys says, and he could be mistaken but she seems kind of sad.</p><p>“So who’s the clientele?”</p><p>“People who are looking for something.”</p><p>“Seems about right.” He takes a drink of the Dewars, and has the sudden impulse to check and see if his pocket diary is still there. Still in his pocket, where he left it, still bound in burgundy leather.</p><p>Gladys finishes her drink and pushes the glass away. It scrapes and squeaks, skittering on the marble. Sal frowns from the end of the bar.</p><p>“So what are <em>you</em> looking for?”</p><p>Nothing like being interrogated by a time travelling Canadian, Lew thinks. He opens his mouth ready to deliver some excuse, or a simple expression of confusion, but he finds himself offering up the truth instead. He wonders if he’ll see shock or disgust colouring her lovely face, whether she’ll move away from him and leave him at the bar alone. It’s never fun drinking when you don’t have anyone to talk to. He should know, he’s done it many times before.</p><p>But just for once, he doesn’t want to have to let out a lie. He’s tired of it.</p><p>“Waiting in New York for my fellow to get back from Europe,” Lew says. “At least I think he’s my fellow.” He grimaces self-deprecatingly at the reflection of himself at the back of the bar, another Lewis framed by mirrored bottles. “I keep thinking once he comes back to civilisation, he’ll realise he’s got better options.”</p><p>In the reflection, Gladys looks up and puts her hand behind the tanqueray to touch Lewis gently on the shoulder. “Maybe you’ll find him here,” she says softly. “He’s probably looking for you too.”</p><p>“Not in here,” Lew says, spluttering with laughter. “He doesn’t drink.”<br/>
But as he says this he remembers all the time Dick’s gone into a bar to fetch him. Seems it’s the only reason he ever goes in. Maybe he’ll see him tonight. If he can go off what Gladys is saying, distance doesn’t matter. He could walk down the street in Austria and somehow end up right here. Only problem is, without Lew around, he won’t have a reason to go in.</p><p>He wants to cry all of a sudden. Misses him so damned much it’s like physical pain, shrapnel in his gut. Swallows the Dewars and the feelings back down, and forces himself to look at Gladys.</p><p>If she’s offended by him being a queer, she doesn’t show it, just gives him a smile that looks like a brave attempt at good cheer, and he realises that there’s got to be a reason why she’s in this bar so much.</p><p>“You?”</p><p>“My fiance.” Her mouth wobbles, she grips the bar. “I keep waiting to see if he’ll walk in that door, but it doesn’t work like that. He can’t come here after he’s dead, only before, and before - well, he wasn’t lost the way I was.”</p><p>“Oh,” says Lew, and for want of words of comfort, he draws Gladys in close, his arm around her shoulder. She fits against him and for an absurd moment, he wonders if this is supposed to be the answer to what he’s going to do with the rest of his life. Then he remembers he just told Gladys he was a queer, and that she’s grieving, and those are tears on the sleeve of his jacket.</p><p>“What’s your fellow like?” says Gladys suddenly.</p><p>“Kind,” answers Lew automatically, and then he wants to gasp in shock as the word hits him because Dick really was - is - kind. Too kind, to be honest, putting up with someone like him. He takes a sharp breath instead, and continues. “Tall, redheaded, handsome. And good. He’s a good man. When you make him laugh it’s the best damned feeling in the world.”</p><p>Gladys is looking at him sympathetically, and pats his hand, and he <em>hates </em>it, because sympathy like that just makes him think that she must know something, must know Dick’s going to see sense and find a nice girl like everyone expects him to. Not like Kathy, someone rarer and more good-tempered than that. Maybe one of those lovely English girls with their good spirits and cups of tea, smiling even though they were living on boiled onions and potatoes and sleep snatched in half-hours between air raids.</p><p>“He always wanted to live on a little farm,” Lew says morosely, thinking of how the English girl would help him with cattle, maybe she’d know how to drive a tractor or coax cereal crops out of wet soil.</p><p>“Sounds like a girl I know,” Gladys says, and she’s staring so determinedly at Sal’s broad waistcoated back that Lew knows the girl is more than just a girl. Has to be. “She always wanted a house. Little cottage, bungalow, anything, so long as it had a yard out the front and it was hers.”</p><p>“Maybe we should set them up,” Lew jokes. Gladys lets out a laugh. “She’s not a teetotaling redhead by any chance?”</p><p>“No, she’s blonde.”</p><p>The conversation’s only just had time to peter out when Sal walks over and looks at their empty glasses. “Can I get you two anything?”</p><p>“One more,” Lew says, grinning at Sal to see what the guy’s going to do, and when a sort of hope flares up in the guy’s eyes, he feels rotten right to his core. It doesn’t seem right to make sport of him, when he has no intention of following through. Sal looks like he’d be desperately grateful for anything that Lew could give him, and he hates that, because he remembers being there himself.</p><p>When Sal hands over his drink, Lew takes it from his hand, feeling his fingers brush against the other man’s, and hoping that small thing will help rather than hurt.</p><p>“So, everyone here’s looking for someone. Or something,” Lew murmurs as soon as Sal’s out of earshot. Gladys nods, and Lew thinks about making a quip about how it’s all in essence a big singles bar, but thinks better of it. “What happens if Sal finds what he wants? Does the bar just…cease to exist?”</p><p>Gladys shrugs, the blue rayon rises. “I really don’t know.”</p><p>“How many times you been here anyway?”</p><p>“This is my third time,” Gladys says. “I didn’t think it’d still be there when I went back.”</p><p>The music changes, and this time it’s something he remembers. Slow dance, like you were supposed to do with your girl. He imagines turning Dick around the floor, Dick’s hands on his waist, tucking his chin into his shoulder, and then banishes the idea from his mind immediately. Not because it’s too romantic, but because Dick will tell anyone in earshot about his two left feet the minute any music starts playing and people start threatening him with a trip to the dance floor.</p><p>“Maybe we should dance,” Lew says, making to get off his stool.</p><p>“No thanks,” says Gladys. “I don’t really need it.”</p><p>“Just a dance,” Lew says, looking at her brown eyes. They’re almost a mirror of his own, as if he’s seeing what it would be like if the girl in the photograph was real. “I’m not on the make or anything, I promise. My hands will stay firmly at waist level.”</p><p>Gladys shakes her head again.</p><p>“Being stuck to the bar is the last thing you need right now.”</p><p>“Oh you wouldn’t know what I need,” says Gladys bitterly. “Nobody does.”</p><p>“Try me,” says Lew smartly. “Maybe that’s why I’m in this damn bar.”</p><p>She glares at him, but steps down from her stool and turns to face the rest of the room. Together they observe the dancers - couples light and gay in their step, the odd person dancing alone, arms tucked close to their body, eyes closed, feeling the music, bliss etched on their features. Freeing, Lew thinks. He wants to be out there with the music, to hold someone - anyone - in his arms again.</p><p>“Fine,” he says. “You don’t have to dance, but I will.”</p><p>“Who with?” Gladys retorts.</p><p>Lew smiles sideways at her, seeing that ribbon of dark hair at the corner of his eye. “Hell, we’ll make a game of it. You pick someone for me to dance with.”</p><p>They surveil the room. He wonders how far Gladys will go with his offer, whether she’ll try and get him to break up a couple, or send him to batter down the walls of one of the nervous folks sitting alone at their floorside tables. Maybe she’ll do something purposefully inflammatory, like ask him to sidle up to that impassive coat check. He’s already decided to draw the line at Sal. One look at the guy and he knows it’ll hurt too much.</p><p>She seems to be taking a long time to decide, but at that moment there’s a small commotion at the door as someone blunders in, looking a little worse for wear already. His demeanour contrasts oddly with his outfit - for the guy looks like he’s dressed for a beach party, with a lemon-coloured polo, cream belted trousers and tan shoes, a jacket in a dizzying shade of teal hooked over his shoulder. His hair is thick and artfully tousled, and the arm holding the jacket is decorated with a large, metal-banded wristwatch.</p><p>As he walks further into the room, into the light, up to the bar just feet from them, Lew notices that the guy doesn’t just look inebriated. He looks stricken. There’s what look to be tear-tracks on his face, and he stares at the back of the bar like he’s not seeing it at all.</p><p>“You seen him before?” Lew murmurs. Gladys shakes her head.</p><p>The guy lifts his head and orders a drink shakily. From the set of his shoulders, Sal seems concerned, but also resigned, as if it’s nothing new to him. He sets down the drink with a kind smile, and moves on, polishing glasses.</p><p>Gladys lifts her chin towards the newcomer.</p><p>“Him?” He can’t help but being incredulous. If there was ever a guy not in the mood, it’s that poor bastard.</p><p>“You might cheer him up,” Gladys says, and could that be cheek in her tone?</p><p>Lew turns to glare at her, but can’t help the glare turning into a smile as he formulates an idea. “Let’s make this a bit more fun, then.” Gladys pouts. “No, before you ask, not at his expense.” He clears his throat. “Let’s cheer him up together.”</p><p>“Together?” Gladys raises an eyebrow.</p><p>Lew lets a slow smile creep onto his face. “We don’t know what he likes. You’re a lovely young woman and I’m - well, I don’t look too bad. So I’ve been told.”</p><p>“Self deprecation will get you nowhere,” Gladys replies, but looks pleased to be so well-regarded.</p><p>“In my experience there’s nothing so repellant as a man who knows he’s handsome,” Lew retorts, “so I try to ignore that fact.” Besides, handsome face or not, he has other defects. What good is getting something going if you can’t get anyone to stay?</p><p>He and Dick seemed to be in the first flush of something, but he has no idea if Dick’s sudden delight over being kissed and touched will last. He can’t help thinking his friend will come to his senses, and it’ll be <em>Lew, we can’t do this, </em>or <em>Lew, this has to stop</em>, or worse, no attempt at an explanation at all, just him cleaving off to make another life. Maybe throwing Lew a bone from time to time in the form of a visit, hands being held under the table, a night in a hotel, which Lew will be powerless to refuse, even while knowing it’ll only make him sadder.</p><p>Maybe that’s what happened to Sal. Or maybe he didn’t even have that. God, he’d take the guy out the back and suck him off if he thought it’d make things better, but he knows for a fact it won’t. Not in the long run. He needs to close up his bar and get on with the rest of his life, Lew thinks, all while observing the irony that he doesn’t feel able to do the same himself</p><p>“So, you going to go introduce yourself?” Gladys says.</p><p>“I’ll do you one better,” Lew says. “Let’s make it a bet. First one to get him to dance wins.”</p><p>“What are we wagering?”</p><p>“Nothing. For the thrill of it. And hell, maybe lighten things for him, maybe enough that he won’t find his way back here.”</p><p>“I get the sense you don’t want to come back to this bar,” Gladys says.</p><p>“Well not when I know what it means.” Lew sighs heavily. He’d much rather have Richard Winters in his arms, even if it means he never visits another damned bar again.</p><p>The guy looks up when they walk over, eyes red and face blotchy. Christ, he’s just a kid, Lew thinks, and then corrects himself, because the guy’s probably the same age as he has. Just hasn’t lived through as much. Every time he nearly died or thought he might have - ten years, right there, in a moment. No matter how sad this man is, it’s doubtful he lived through everyone else in his stick bursting into flames.</p><p>“Hi, I guess?” The guy’s voice has a shake to it, and it sounds high and needy and broken. Lew now regrets his wager.</p><p>“Hello,” says Gladys confidently, stepping forward. “We thought you might prefer a little company.”</p><p>“Or maybe you wouldn’t,” Lew says nonchalantly, “but you need it anyway. Not going to stand by and let a man cry alone at the bar.”</p><p>The man looks bewildered. “And you are?”</p><p>“Gladys Witham, and this is Lewis Nixon.” She has an encouraging smile on her red lips, and leans forward to lightly touch the newcomer on the shoulder. The guy rolls his shoulder unconsciously, like he’s twitching off a fly. Looks like Gladys is off on the back foot, Lew thinks without much humour.</p><p>“Look,” says the guy, looking at both of their faces in turn, his eyebrows furrowed, looking more annoyed at being interrupted than anything else. “I’ve got no idea who the hell you are, but if you’re looking for a third, I’m not interested.”</p><p>Gladys frowns, and Lew, taking in her confusion and the young guy’s irritation, can’t help but laugh, a low chuckle at first that turns into a shout of it, and now he’s laughing so hard that he needs to steady himself on the bar and he’s joined the man in crying. A few of the patrons look over, which just makes it funnier.</p><p>“Priceless,” he manages to splutter, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Absolutely damn priceless. A third! Ha!” What makes it funnier is that in another time, he’d think nothing of leading the guy and Gladys off into a waiting taxi and asking the driver to find the nearest hotel, but not now, not when he’s still carrying that damned torch. Not to mention that if they leave the bar - what, do Gladys and the man cease to exist? Looking at the way the guy’s dressed, there’s no way he’s from the same New York that Lew’s come from. He’s got tan lines on his wrist, for fuck’s sake. It’s all too bizarre, but now, he’s prepared to embrace it.</p><p>He realises a little too late that Gladys and the guy are staring at him with identical expressions of exasperation.</p><p>“Are you quite finished?” Gladys says.</p><p>“Yeah, uh, I didn’t think that suggestion was quite so funny,” the guy replies, still staring at him. Pretty eyes, Lew thinks, and wants to laugh all over again.</p><p>“Sorry.” He clears his throat, having laughed so hard that now he feels like he’s going to start coughing. “Let’s start this again. I’m Lewis Nixon. You probably don’t know me, which is probably for the best. I’m not trying to pick you up but before I got shipped out I probably fucked half of New York, New Jersey and New Haven - basically anywhere with New in the name, come to think of it. Maybe one day I’ll go to New Zealand and start there.”</p><p>Both Gladys and the man have coloured at the mention of the word “fuck.”</p><p>“Oh,” says Lewis, waving his hand, “and while Gladys here has been polite enough not to comment on it, yes, you <em>can</em> ask about whether I’m saying “half” to mean girls. And no, I’m not, at least not half the time.”</p><p>The guy’s staring at him, gobsmacked. “So, you…”</p><p>“Yep,” says Lew cheerfully.</p><p>The guy mutters something low and wounded sounding<em>. </em>He turns to Gladys. “Who <em>is </em>this guy exactly?”</p><p>“I can’t pretend to have foreknowledge of Mr Nixon’s past,” Gladys says. “As a matter of fact, I only met him tonight.” There are spots of pink high on her cheeks. Maybe she could accept the lover back in Europe, but knowing Lew was everyone’s special friend at one time - that might be a bit too far.</p><p>“Well what about you?” Lewis asks baldly, turning the charm on the guy to see if he can coax a smile out of him. “You got a name? I think I can go without spending the rest of the evening calling you lemon-shirt-man in my head.”</p><p>A reward in the form of a twitch of the mouth, which reminds him that this man must have been happy once. “Bash Howard,” he says, and funnily enough, he pauses like he’s waiting for recognition too. “I’m a producer.”</p><p>“You an heir to some kind of fortune?” Lew quips, and Bash glows pink.</p><p>“How -“</p><p>“Let me put your mind at ease, we’re not fortune hunters.” Lew leans forward and whispers conspiratorially. “We’re heirs too.”</p><p>And now there’s a genuine smile flowering on Bash’s face. “No shit! Hey!” He shakes both of their hands vigorously. “What’s the family business?”</p><p>“Nitrates,” Lew says, and Bash moves his mouth to <em>what</em> but Lewis pre-empts him, saying “it’s a chemical plant. Plastics, bombs, fertiliser, all that palaver.”</p><p>“And you?”</p><p>Gladys smiles. “Tinned food.”</p><p>Now Bash is grinning broadly like it’s a private joke. “Oh hey! Me too!” He waves his hands at the adjoining stools. “Come on, sit. I’ll get you a drink. Hey, let’s get champagne, why not?”</p><p>Champagne. He hasn’t had that since Austria. Hasn’t gone to many parties on his return, hasn’t had the stomach for it, but when he sips the bright liquid, feels the bubbles fizzing in his nose, the fine mousse in the cup, it feels right.</p><p>“To new beginnings,” he finds himself saying, and the other two smile and join the toast, and when Bash motions Sal over and asks him to share a glass with them, they do the toast again. Sal looks a little flustered, but smiles broadly, and asks if they have any requests for the music.</p><p>Then Bash gets him talking and before Sal can even turn away and keep tending bar, Bash has got him drawing all over cocktail napkins with a fountain pen. The renderings are confident, illustrative and <em>good</em>, Lew’s surprised to note. After a couple of passed comments, renderings of the three of them are produced, as quick as a photograph and with so much more character.</p><p>“Great, huh!” Bash looks almost as proud as if he’s drawn them himself. “Sal used to be an art director. On Madison Avenue, would you believe?”</p><p><em>How’d you end up here then?</em> But he can’t voice that thought, and watch that happy face crumble. It must be something, having the chance to draw again after never picking up a pen for years. Like reattaching a lost limb.</p><p>Bash passes Sal a big tip for the privilege, clasping his hand, congratulating him on doing such an amazing job, giving him his card and his promises - oh kid, don’t dole out your word like that - but before he can warn either of them, Sal’s moved to change the record.</p><p>Seems we cheered him up without even dancing, Lew thinks, but as soon as the music kicks in he looks at Gladys and knows the bet’s back on. And now she has the advantage of being heir to a business that Bash understands. Meanwhile he’s played all his hands and revealed himself to be the kind of guy you go for if you want to get sucked off, but not the guy you want to take home to Mom. Not exactly classy.</p><p>Not that Bash has a Mom. Nor would Gladys, nor himself. It’d be Mother or nothing.</p><p>Sal though, he probably has a Mom. Lou wonders if she misses him.</p><p>He waits for Gladys to suggest a dance to Bash, but during a swell of the music, she holds up her hands and looks at Lew, a question in her eyes, and why not, he takes her onto the floor. She’s a good dancer, which he knows by now is all too rare, and as he leads her into a waltz there’s laughter in her eyes. Lew guides her into a spin and glances over at Bash as she spirals back towards him. The man’s looking at both of them as they dance and he looks utterly rapt, as if it’s a floor show he’s never seen before. Lew wonders if he’s ever seen Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. Probably best that he doesn’t. If he’s this enthralled by two people having a dance in a bar, the excitement of seeing professionals might send him to bed for a week.</p><p>The song ends, and Gladys is giddy, laughing, her hand on Lew’s arm. “Still on?” he says, before the two of them leave the floor.</p><p>“Still on,” Gladys replies. “Just -“ she gestures her head to the back of the room. “Need to powder my nose.” She heads off in that direction, and Lew returns back to the orbit of the bar, and to the side of Bash Howard.</p><p>“I really love your whole look.” He’s starry-eyed, as if he’s witnessed true greatness, and Lew can’t decide if it’s enthusiasm for the world or downright naïveté. He’s never known a rich guy to be so completely lacking in cynicism, and he’s known plenty of rich guys.</p><p>“Oh?” Lew arches his eyebrow, looking into that flushed, earnest face.</p><p>“Yeah, the whole retro thing! It’s cool, like something out of an old movie. Can I see your watch?” He grabs Lew’s wrist eagerly and turns it to see his wristwatch. “Wow, that’s like something my Grandpa would have!”</p><p>“Thanks,” Lew says. It doesn’t sound like a compliment but the guy’s so guileless, he decides to take it as one. His grandfather never even had a wristwatch. Dismissed them as newfangled rubbish. Much preferred to keep reaching in and out of his waistcoat pocket, tiny chain clipped to his front.</p><p>“Yeah, wow!” Bash is now looking about the room, his blue eyes wide. “Everyone here looks like they just went to one hell of a costume party. Well, not <em>everyone</em>,” he says, spotting a couple of men and women in the corner, who to Lew’s eyes look absolutely outlandish, like a pair of parrots. He looks back at Lew and his brows suddenly furrow. “Hey, what happened to Gladys?”</p><p>“Ladies’ room,” says Lew. “So. You liked us dancing, huh?”</p><p>“It was wild,” Bash says. “Looked like a lot of fun.”</p><p>He wishes he had a drink. Not for the thirst so much as for something to do with his hands. “You can dance with me if you like.”</p><p>“What? Hah, no thanks, buddy.” Bash looks genuinely startled at the suggestion.</p><p>“You sure about that?” Lew says quietly. He sets his gaze on Bash’s face, and sees a flicker of something flit across his eyes, and a twist of his mouth that looks like longing for something he feels he’s not allowed to do.</p><p>“I don’t know how to dance like that,” says Bash, dropping his chin.</p><p>“Oh, that’s fine. I’ll lead, you follow.” He looks out over the floor again. It’s now mostly empty, most of the dancers worn out, stumbling back to their tables. Some of the women are kicking off their shoes and stretching out stockinged feet under the table. Two fellas are looking at their clasped hands with private smiles as if they can’t believe themselves for doing it.</p><p>He turns back to Bash, who looks expectant now.</p><p>“Ready?”</p><p>The guy nods and Lew takes his hand. “Hey Sal!” he finds himself calling, while also realising that he’s become one of those guys who yells requests at the barkeep. “Can you put on something slow?” Bash is blushing, and Lew mollifies him by adding in a quieter tone, “reduces the chance of you stepping on my feet.”</p><p>Bash dances like a virgin fucks. Hesitant, jerky, both unaware of his body and hyperaware of it, which is funny considering that he has an easy physicality that speaks of sports and movement. Lew wonders if it’s sailing, tennis, golf perhaps. He keeps looking at his feet, and Lew murmurs more than once “eyes front, I’ll lead.”</p><p>“So I look at you?” Bash asks.</p><p>“Yeah, if I’m not so horrible to look at.” He chances a grin, less to flirt but more to put the guy at ease. Bash’s hands feel warm on his shoulder. They turn about the floor, Lew managing to wrangle Bash into some sense of timing. He keeps wanting to be faster, as if he’s used to something more upbeat, as if he wants to jump. The song’s short, but towards the end of it, the guy’s gotten a bit of a handle on himself, and he feels surer in Lewis’ arms. Starts to lean towards him, even, and as the song ends, pulls him into a hug.</p><p>It shouldn’t feel as good as it does, but it’s been so long since another man held him.</p><p>Sal lifts the needle, and he hears the crackle of the player going round, and then another song. Something livelier, big band stuff. Bash still has his hand on his shoulder, and his own arm is around that lemon-yellow back. “Shall we go again?’</p><p>“Sure,” says Lew, unable to hold back a huff of surprise. “If you like.”</p><p>As they’re dancing, Gladys gets back from the ladies. As she walks around the edge of the floor, Lew shoots her a triumphant look, because Bash’s head is on his shoulder now, and in a sense, he’s won. Gladys frowns, and Lew mouths <em>what, </em>not thinking she’d be such a sore loser about something so inconsequential. They might have come into the bar looking for people, but neither of them were looking for Bash Howard, and he certainly wasn’t looking for them. But now he’s realised that Bash is flagging, and the hand holding his isn’t so much holding as clutching, and he’s trembling in his arms. Lew’s kept his eyes front, so he can steer, but he looks to the side and catches the man crying.</p><p>Ah, shit.</p><p>He swallows down a joke about not knowing his dancing was that bad, and instead walks Bash over to one of the floorside tables, sits him down carefully as if he’s breakable. He plonks himself down in the opposite chair with considerably more abandon, and ends up watching Bash cry into his own hand, sobbing as if a fresh loss has just hit him.</p><p>“Hey,” he murmurs, thankful the music has faded off. Sal must have turned it down. “You alright?”</p><p>Bash says nothing, just cries. Lew scrounges in his pockets and manages to find a handkerchief. One of those awful olive drab ones someone thought it was a bright idea to issue - as if anyone was going to use anything other than a sleeve in the line of fire, but it’s freshly laundered and still holding perfect folds. “Here,” he says, handing it over. Bash takes it shakily, and lets out a teary giggle. “A handkerchief? Jesus, you’re older than you look.”</p><p>“Hey,” Lew protests. “I’m twenty six.”</p><p>“Twenty six?” Bash appears not to be spurning the hanky, and is blotting his eyes with it. “So am I!” Then, his face falls anew.</p><p>“What happened?” Lew asks, moving his chair closer.</p><p>“He never made it to twenty six.”</p><p>And there it is. The reason Bash Howard is in this bar.</p><p>Christ, both Bash and Gladys - someone died. All <em>he</em> has to worry about is whether or not Dick will want to see him when he gets back. Then again, maybe -</p><p>Maybe you only end up in Sal’s when your man’s dead.</p><p>For a minute, blind panic swells in him - but that won’t do any good. It’s happened whether or not he knows it.</p><p><em>Get a hold of yourself. </em>He’s here in Sal’s, comforting a man who’s crying his eyes out about losing someone. Not just temporarily, forever. Never made it to twenty-six.</p><p>Like so many of them, bleeding out in some place no one will pronounce or remember. Like some of them when they get back, he supposes grimly, who can’t live with it.</p><p>Lew keeps his voice low, and doesn’t try to hold Bash’s eye. Lets him look at the table, at the floor, at the bar, at Gladys, who’s now giving a little wave to someone else she knows. Anywhere but him. Doesn’t want to make this harder than it has to be.</p><p>“He must have been special,” Lew says, patting Bash on the arm.</p><p>Bash sniffs, blows his nose loudly. “I thought he’d be my friend forever. I really did.” A great watery gulp of air. “But then he had to go and die on me.”</p><p>“Yeah, I get it,” says Lew. He sighs, feeling a little drained, thinking of the men. “It’s funny. You get mad at them for doing that to you. Then you get mad at yourself for not saving them.”</p><p>“I got married!” Bash suddenly spits, as if he’s admitting to something heinous. “He dies, I fucking <em>freak</em> and then I go get married like I think that’s going to fix anything - but it can’t fix it, and I hate myself but I don’t - I don’t want to die, Lew! I really don’t.”</p><p>“Sometimes,” Lew says, a little recklessly, “It helps to think of yourself as already dead. The reaper’s working his way down a list and your name’s on it somewhere.”</p><p>Bash’s gaping at him, looking horrified. Right. He forgets sometimes. Not everyone’s an army man, and when you get back home and talk like that - well.</p><p>“You have any idea why you’re in this bar?”</p><p>“No?’ Bash swallows. “I dunno, it seems like a pretty regular bar to me.”</p><p>He thinks about explaining the liminal space thing, but decides not to bother. Knowing why he’s here won’t cure the hurt anyway.</p><p>“I was married too,” he says instead. “I’m sure a lot of people here were.” He thinks of Sal’s ring, glinting on his hand as he gripped glasses. “Sometimes,” he punctuates his sentence by squeezing Bash’s shoulder, “sometimes marriage doesn’t fix anything, and it doesn’t mean shit.” He feels Bash wince. “Just…think about whether it’s worth it. Life’s too short to be scared of what you want.”</p><p>Bash’s voice is small. “I’m worried it’ll kill me, though.”</p><p>“What, like you’ll go to hell?”</p><p>“No,” Bash says. “They’re getting sick. All of them. And I’m -” He shudders. “Scrubbed my house like he was filthy.”</p><p>Ah Christ, Lew thinks. Some kind of epidemic, like the one the year he was born? <em>Can’t help you with that.</em> He wonders if Sal would throw him out if he asked, but he gets the feeling that Bash would never tell him.</p><p>“You want to tell me about your friend?” he says instead, letting Bash slump against him. He touches his hair, expecting pomade, but the light brown strands are oddly stiff and crunchy.</p><p>Bash mumbles into Lewis’ shirt. “I said he was my friend but I wanted - I wanted him to be more.”</p><p>He sounds in danger of sobbing again. Lew murmurs something, he doesn’t know what.</p><p>“I’m really fucked, aren’t I?”</p><p>Yes, thinks Lew. You are. You are absolutely fucked and I can’t help you. But despite himself, he wants to try.</p><p>“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he ends up saying.</p><p>“Oh, what would you know?”</p><p>“Plenty,” he says shortly. “I know I loved my friend too. I know I waited too damned long before acting on it.” He sighs heavily, pats Bash awkwardly on the shoulder, realising he’s drunker than he thought he was. His fingers are numb and clumsy. “Look,” he says, drawing away from Bash, wanting to look him in the eye. “This hurts - I know, and it will hurt, and I can’t take that away from you. But don’t close off the rest of your life because of it.”</p><p>“I told my wife I’d stay with her,” Bash says slowly, as if it’s a realisation that’s dawning on him.</p><p>“Well sure!” Lew says. “Plenty of people do. But I’d suggest being honest. She probably knows already, you know. Probably wants you happy at least.” He shrugs on his jacket from where he’d laid it on the chair, after dancing. “You like women?”</p><p>Bash stares. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“Oh, you know what I mean.” He grins. “Well, there’s my answer. You don’t. So don’t be with one.”</p><p>His words sound hollow, but he hopes they’ll help. Maybe nobody’s ever spoken to Bash like this in his life. Maybe he needs to hear it from someone. He thinks of Bash’s buddy waiting for him to make a move. Probably hurt that Bash didn’t seem to realise, but too proud to ask. Some people - they just won’t get it unless you tell them.</p><p>“Do you?” Bash suddenly asks.</p><p>“Like women? Or love my friend?”</p><p>“Both.” Bash says. “But - if you like women - how, why would you - why would you be with him? If you could help it?”</p><p>He looks at him steadily, and knows he’s just about said his piece and should be off now. Sal’s has given him about all it could, and he’s tired.</p><p>“Because I love him,” Lew says finally, and stands up from his chair. “So long, Bash. And if I don’t see you again, take care of yourself. I mean it.”</p><p>Bash nods in a resigned kind of way, and as Lew walks to the bar, he wonders whether Bash would have liked to kiss him, and what he would have done if he had.</p><p>Dick might not come back, he realises. Maybe it’s a fleeting thing, and maybe it’s done. <em>Got the rest of my life to find out, </em>he remembers him saying. He hopes to God that’s a promise.</p><p>He wants to say goodbye to Gladys - guide to this strange intermediate world, but she’s deep in conversation with a blonde woman, smiling, twirling her hair around her finger, and he doesn’t want to interrupt. He goes to settle up at the bar instead, and calls Sal over. He’s been talking to a guy in a lurid plaid sports coat. Handsome fella, Lew thinks, observing the guy’s matinee idol looks, but he looks too eager-to-please, all wide eyes and hesitant smiles, and Lew’s frankly a bit embarrassed on his behalf. But the guy’s looking over at Sal, and Sal’s passing glances back at him, and Lew begins to wonder what kind of magic this bar casts over people. Real lonely hearts coming together.</p><p>“Be back a minute, Bob,” says Sal, with a fond smile, and the guy just <em>beams</em> back at him. Lew would roll his eyes if it wasn’t sweet.</p><p>“Real interesting place you got here,” he says, as he’s paying his bill. “How long you been open?”</p><p>Sal quirks an eyebrow at him. “Too long,” he drawls, gives him his change and slowly turns back as if he’s eager to be returning to his conversation.</p><p>“Well, I’ll be off then,” says Lew to no one. The bar still hums with the sound of people who don’t want to go home. He checks back behind him to see if Bash has left, only to find him deep in conversation with the little knot of people clad like parrots. It seems anticlimactic somehow, but then again, most exits are like that.</p><p>He walks over to the coat check. It’s so dimly lit over there it might as well be a London blackout, and so it’s not much of a surprise that he blunders into a guy before he can even so much as see him.</p><p>“Excuse me,” he says, and as the guy’s mid-apology, even though it wasn’t his mistake, Lew recognises that voice - thin, a little tired, but it’s him, it’s <em>him -</em></p><p>“Dick?”</p><p>Richard Winters steps out into the light and claps Lew by the shoulders, and oh god, if seeing that face didn’t make it all worth it, didn’t make him regret giving over his handkerchief, he doesn’t know what -</p><p>“I was hoping I’d run into you,” Dick says, and he smiles, and Lew doesn’t give a damn whether he’s in Austria or in New York because he’s here, looking for him in a bar. Figures.</p><p>“I love you,” Lew says, not giving a damn that he’s in public, because there’s no way in hell this bar can really exist on the same plane as everything else on earth, and if you can’t be honest here where can you be?</p><p>Dick’s eyes widen and swim a little. “Oh Lew…”</p><p>“You too?” says Lew, running his hand from Dick’s shoulder to his neck and through the tawny bristles on the back of his head, through his hair, hardly out of the dark before he presses forward and kisses him.</p><p>“Me too,” come the words against his mouth, before Dick opens his lips again and kisses him back, warm and and strong.</p><p>Behind him, Sal puts a record on.</p><p>“Care to dance?” Lew offers up his hands. He’s never danced with Dick before, and he knows it’ll be terrible, but doesn’t care. Dick smiles and takes Lew’s hand and says “I’d love to.”</p><p>It doesn’t matter where they are, Lew thinks, or if they’re dead, or dreaming, because they’re here, and he’s leading Richard Winters onto a dance floor and drawing him into his arms. They’re dancing to a song he’s never heard before, but he likes it.</p><p>From the look on his face, Dick likes it too.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Lewis' Dewars diary is based on a real one I purchased at a second hand store, which you can see https://twitter.com/LudicrousLouisa/status/1357500099467726848</p><p>(I tried to post this as a proper link multiple times but couldn't get it to work, and for that I am sorry!)</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>